Gore’s Current TV cuts 80 workers, shifts programming

Current TV, the San Francisco cable and Internet video channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, on Wednesday cut 80 workers and announced a big shift in its programing strategy.

Current Media Inc. said the company is moving Current TV away from daily in-house production of short-form programs and toward programs presented in more industry-standard 30- and 60-minute formats.

The cutbacks come even as Current Media expects its most profitable year.

“This is less about an exercise in cost-cutting and more about a strategic realignment of our programming,” Chief Operating Officer Joanna Drake Earl said in an interview.

Since the channel’s launch in 2005 by co-founders Gore and Joel Hyatt, Current TV touted short-form video as the way to reach younger audiences who were shifting their attention to online video sources like YouTube.

But the shorter programs on the cable channel, available in 59 million households in the United States, United Kingdom and Italy, did not capture audiences and proved to be confusing, Earl said.

Current TV and its online component Current.com are not abandoning the use of short user-generated video, she said. Instead, the channel has been packaging them in the longer formats that are proving to better retain audiences, such as the “Rotten Tomatoes Show.”

The company is consolidating in-house video production in new facilities in Los Angeles, although the firm’s headquarters and production of original online content such as “Current Green” and “Current Tech” will remain in San Francisco, Earl said.The company has canceled shows like “Current Tonight,” “Current Takeover” and “Current Exposed.” The fired workers were production and support staff of the canceled shows.

But Current TV still plans to fill new positions being created by the new programming strategy, which will include shows from outside producers, Earl said. The company plans to end up with about 300 employees.

Current TV stayed in the headlines earlier this year when two of its journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, were held captive by North Korea for five months. Former President Bill Clinton helped engineer their release in August.

Gore, who was Clinton’s vice president, is chairman of the board at Current Media.

And in April, the company canceled plans for a $100 million initial public offering because of the bad economy.